What Word Sums Up Your Gun Dog Season?

In most of the country, bird and waterfowl seasons are either over or are starting to wind down, which means it’s time to take a quick breather, then start thinking about goals for the off-season. I still have a little over two weeks of quail season in my home state, and I have one more late season out-of-state bird hunting trip (Texas quail) planned for next month, but other than that, I’ve put a fork in my 2012-13 hunting season. What one word summed it up? What theme permeated the entire season? I’d have to say… Finally! Yep, Finally!

Finally! Number One: Finally, and just shy of his first birthday, Ozzy finally got his first real, honest-to-dog, “this-is-it, boss!” point on a genuine, non-pigeon, non-planted, non-poultrified, buck-ass wild Oklahoma quail. And I even managed to shoot the damned thing. It made my season, and definitely instilled a sense of purpose in him. You can talk all you want about training this and training that, but ultimately, that old saw is right: birds make bird dogs. It’s one of the most common laments heard from owners of young dogs, the fear that their Chosen One is not going to work out. I call it the dreaded “I just don’t think this dog gets it” syndrome. And one of the most common retorts to said lament is the maddeningly trite-sounding “Your dog’s fine. You just need to get him/her into birds.” Which does nothing, absolutely nothing, to allay your rampaging fear that your dog, the one you had so many sky-high hopes for, the one you paid so much money for, just can’t cut it. Case in point? My pup Ozzy. He’s been slowly putting it together this season. Emphasis on slowly. But a few weeks ago…

Finally! Number Two: That also holds true for your other dogs. Just this weekend, Jenny, my other setter, the now-three-year-old that I’ve been patiently waiting to have a breakout season, finally had, at least, a breakout day. And in a season with as few birds and as tough conditions as this one, I’ll gladly take it. Jenny convinced me, at last, she does have a decent nose. She looked like a veteran dog on Saturday, finding and pointing two different coveys of quail, as well as several singles, in pretty miserable scenting conditions. And, true to form Jenny also had one really stylish, head-high point…on a porcupine twenty feet up in a tree…

Finally! Number Three: After much frustration, disappointment, and a few desperate weather dances, we finally got a late push of ducks into my area that, sort of, salvaged my duck season, which was especially important to me considering my chessie’s advanced age. Unlike the crazy good seasons in parts of the country, we didn’t get many limits, and what limits we got weren’t all status ducks, but we had enough action to make every trip enjoyable. Even when we didn’t shoot anything.

A few other random Finally! thoughts: After years of dreaming, I finally got to hunt both the Nebraska sandhills and Montana this year, and both lived up to the dream. I finally shot my first sage grouse, which was an important bucket list item for me, and I finally managed to go an entire season without losing something (even temporarily) in the field, up to and including (in random order) the dogs, my gun, my e-collar/GPS transmitters, my camera, my lunch, my sense of direction or my vehicle. All of which I have managed, at one time or another, to misplace, lose, drop, or leave behind. I think maybe that Ginkgo Biloba is helping…

Assuming it’s over or almost over, what word or phrase sums up how your and your dogs’ season went this year?